Technical Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to communications devices; and more particularly to high-speed wired communications devices.
Description of Related Art
Communication systems are known to support wireless and wire lined communications between wireless and/or wire lined communication devices. Such communication systems range from national and/or international cellular telephone systems to the Internet to point-to-point in-home wireless networks. Each type of communication system is constructed, and hence operates, in accordance with one or more communication standards. For instance, wireless communication systems may operate in accordance with one or more standards including, but not limited to, IEEE 802.11x, Bluetooth, wireless wide area networks (e.g., WiMAX), advanced mobile phone services (AMPS), digital AMPS, global system for mobile communications (GSM), North American code division multiple access (CDMA), Wideband CDMA, local multi-point distribution systems (LMDS), multi-channel-multi-point distribution systems (MMDS), radio frequency identification (RFID), Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE), General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), and many others. Communication systems may also operate according to propriety formats and formats that are modified standard formats. Typically, the communication format is selected to suit a particular need and/or implementation.
Many devices such as PCs, smartphones, digital cameras, printers, tablet computers connect to each other and to the Internet through Wireless Access Points (WAP). The coverage of one or more of these access points called hotspots can extend from an area of a small room to many miles with multiple overlapping access points. WAP units connect to various network devices such as servers/routers through Ethernet adapters over wired networks. A typical network in FIG. 1 shows the wiring between the router/switch and several WAP units as will be discussed further hereafter.
Meeting the demand for higher speed requires not only increase in the number of WAP connections but also an increase in the speed of the wired connections between the WAP units and the routers. The demand for faster speeds on the wired connections also spurred technological evolution on data carrying techniques. As such, copper and fiber transmission standards have progressed, providing greater bandwidth over Ethernet architectures. But higher speeds also required higher quality connection media.
These new speeds such as 10 Gbps (10G) require higher quality cables such as Cat6a (category 6a) or even require fiber connections between devices. However, the legacy backbones still exist in the buildings and houses which are mainly based on unshielded CAT5 cable, such as Cat5e (category 5 enhanced), that are suitable to transmit 1 Gbps speeds. There is a need to support the next generation WAP standards over the existing networks. Such an emerging WAP standard is 802.11ac which can provide data rates beyond 1 Gbps. The only available Ethernet adapter that can support the new WAP rates is 10GBASE-T standard that runs at 10 Gbps rate. However, as previously discussed, 10GBASE-T systems require a new type of cabling based on the more expensive Cat6a. Removing all Cat5e cables to re-cable the networks with Cat6a is an enormous task that is cost prohibitive.